Food for Thought

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Credit: HLS Historical & Special Collections Read CaptionCATCH AND RELEASE “Throw it back—too small,” fishermen have bemoaned over the ages—including Bavarian fishermen in the 16th century, who used this foldout illustration to gauge how large a carp should be before it could be permanently removed from the water.Credit: HLS Historical & Special Collections Read CaptionUnder the reign of another Henry—Henry III—in 1266 came the earliest English legislation regulating the price of bread, enacted in part in response to unscrupulous bakers who price-gouged depending on the size of the harvest. Called the Assize of Bread, it stood for six centuries in various forms, establishing the price of wheat and different sizes and types of loaves. “Here begynneth the Boke named the Assyse of breade, what it ought to weye after the pryce of a quarter of Wheete,” this version, from about 1540, beganneth.Credit: HLS Historical & Special Collections Read CaptionNext time you find yourself squinting at the long list of ingredients on a food label, think of this cartoon in the Food Field Reporter from the early 1930s, which was created in response to stricter labeling guidelines proposed for—and causing consternation among—canners. The NRA in this case stands for the National Recovery Administration.Credit: HLS Historical & Special Collections Read CaptionWHEN TO BUY AN EGG? The HLS Library also contains books on religious law, of which food is a significant part. For instance, one arrêt, a ruling issued by the Parlement of Paris in 1778, allowed the sale of eggs from Ash Wednesday through Easter week in Paris. Read CaptionTRUE TEA! Not long after a group of patriots dumped tea into the harbor in Boston, the British showed how important the beverage was to them. In response to phony tea dealers selling sloe, licorice or the leaves of other plants, a statute was passed in 1777 granting warrants for officers to search buildings suspected of holding supplies of the imitation product. Dealers convicted of such fraud were subject to fines and imprisonment of up to a year. Read CaptionLET THEM EAT ICE CREAM. In France, authorities issued special licenses to provide ice and snow to Parisian retailers to make ice cream or flavored ices, treats that were introduced into the country during the 17th century. One of these licenses “Privilege du roy, exclusif pour la fourniture de la glace,” notes the health benefits of ices. Read CaptionThe FDA recently found that 12 percent of the spices imported into the United States are contaminated with some nasty stuff, such as insect parts and rodent hair. Maybe what’s needed is an “act for the well garbling of spices.” That was a law established in 17th-century England that called for “garbling” (sifting out impurities)—by an appointed garbler—to prevent “unclean, corrupt and mingled spices.” Read CaptionThere have been countless efforts over the ages to regulate the purity of alcoholic beverages—along with efforts to regulate the behavior of those who imbibe them. One example from England in 1763 was an “act for repressing the odious and loathsome sin of drunkenness.” One punishment was being put in the stocks for several hours. A few decades before, a similar act, meant to reduce drunkenness and help cure society’s ills, reportedly caused riots.

Food law is a particularly hot topic now (see story). But an appetite for the mixture of food and law has been building for centuries. The HLS Library collection includes books and documents that highlight some of the historical rules and regulations surrounding everything comestible, including bread, meat, fruit, and sugar and spice. And from the time of Henry VIII, it shows a vast volume of laws pertaining to alcoholic beverages. As one legal dissertation written in 1656 on the law of beer put it: “It should not be beneath the dignity of a lawyer to investigate diligently the nature of beer.” To read more about these items, see HLS Librarian Mary L. Person’s “Sundry Good and Needfull Ordinances: Food & Drink in the Law Library.”